I saw an article a couple of days ago on one of the popular sites (ft or Bloomberg or something), about how now is a great opportunity to purchase private company credit.
Guess this is the submarine https://paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Private credit is far different than the debt of a public ally traded company. It is far riskier as those companies can't easily tap the credit or equity markets for new money if they get into trouble the way a public company can.
But the debt we are talking about is not Private credit debt, its completely different animal with far different risk characteristics
The problem with private credit is that most of the valuations are not publicly tested.
what do I mean by that? oracle is publicly traded, which means they (should) report profit loss and other key metrics in a standardised way. This means that one company's metrics should be comparable to others. Their value is assessed by the second on a public market. This means that anything that affects thier value (real or imagined) is reflected almost instantly. (same goes for debt)
Private credit, and the stuff its invested in, is much murkier. THey do not have the same public reporting rules. There is no testing of value. Its in the interest of the owner of that debt to talk up the value of the assets they hold.
This means that a fund might invest in 10 companies. Those companies might be doing well, or they might not. Because information is limited, and there are no public trades, the value of those companies are only ever tested at sale, or in a crisis. (ie they fold, or do something so public that they can't avoid the consequences.)
THe problem then is that because information is limited (was it a one off, did the owner hide the problem, did they use the wrong investment strategey, is the rest of the portfolio also over valued by 10x?) causes people to panic, and withdraw money.
Because private credit is not that liquid, it means that if people withdraw too much money, they either have to say "no we have no free cash" (lehman brothers insolvancy), they have to take out bridging loans (expensive and very short term) or sell assets (fire sales rarely get good value and shrink the credit supply)
All of which causes a panic, and people look at places like softbank, see the leverage and think "oh fuck thats not worth anything" and the bubble pops.
Modern finance is basically a collaborative fiction. Its fine so long as everyone buys into the same narrative. As soon as someone says "no, why?" the whole thing falls of the rails.
But luckily for the modern financial system, there are enough watchdogs lured with its narratives into willingness to enforce their coherency with weapons.
Had temporary acronym overload, unpacking for anyone else:
There was a cringe-named Republican bill from the beginning of Trump's term, it somehow(?) relaxed the Enhanced Supplementary Leverage Ratio, and the eSLR is one of several related rules on very big banks that deter them taking on "too much" risk.
In maths, you go through proofs every step of the way. Same in physics, you start by performing even the most basic experiments, and build your way up.
I'm struggling to understand what the desirable alternative is here. Children shouldn't be recognized by their patients? Or only lower class parents should have the burden of sharing their income with their children?
He gets inheritance rights, so he'll inherit money from the royal estate (built up through his ancestors' royal allowances, or through any other means the throne has used to accumulate wealth), even though he doesn't get a royal allowance.
However, if he didn't inherit, then his share of that money would have gone to any siblings/other relatives instead, anyway. The royal family as a whole doesn't appear to gain or lose any wealth.
Unless, I guess it's possible it could affect inheritance taxes one way or the other, if the state takes inheritance taxes?
It sounds like the inheritance is following the agreed terms of a transition away from monarchy. I don't know anything about the specific situation, but in general, I'd think that maybe a generous but peaceful separation agreement with the royal estate might work out to be cheaper (in multiple ways) for the state and the people than a harsher takeover/repossession of royal wealth would be. It really depends on the political situation.
All children should be gestated in womb-bladders in state hatcheries, and raised to maturity by the state. Knowing or wanting to know your parents should be considered a deviancy, a perversion.
Oh wait that’s Brave New World. Or The Naked Sun, depending on your preferred flavour of SF nightmare.
Aristocracies should not exist anywhere on earth in 2026, except in ceremonial form. Their ill-gotten gains should be expropriated into the hands of the state.
It's dishonest of you to argue that they should be treated like normal citizens while they cling desperately to their distinct and superior position. If they want to be treated as normal people all they have to do is renounce their titles.
So what's stopping the Belgian people from grabbing torches and pitchforks, marching to the castle, and demanding that this injustice be immediately reconciled?
The king is already mostly ceremonial. He seems mainly a stabilization factor for the country when both halves get a bout of separatism once more: He is the ultimate person every major politician talks to when nobody wants to talk to each other. The king does have some extra rights, but not too much, and the alternative seems worse.
King Albert 2 didn't want to become king but nobody else with enough capability was available. So it's not just a fun job.
But yes, the discussion to king or not pops up once in a while, and the general response seems to be we got much bigger problems.
I mean, he's not getting a royal allowance, even though his father does. It sounds like they already have peaceful transition away from monarchy worked out, in which case, threatening or committing violence is senseless and potentially counterproductive.
